


Haunted Houses

by axolotl356



Category: Trailer Park Boys
Genre: Halloween, Haunted Houses, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:42:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29425476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axolotl356/pseuds/axolotl356
Summary: The boys decide to run a haunted house, leading them to stay in a cabin on the lake for several months. Ricky works through some baggage.
Relationships: Julian/Ricky (Trailer Park Boys)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

The idea first came about in mid-July. The boys were sitting in Bubbles’ shed, half-watching the second Friday the Thirteenth movie for the twentieth time, and passing a joint back and forth. Ricky, as usual, was going on a rant about how dumb cops are.

“It’s just that people always say to do what you’re good at, right? Like, when you take fucking altitude tests and shit in school, it tells you what talents you have that you can make money off of. So, what the cops don’t understand is that my fucking talents, which I was told to put to good use, are growing fucking good dope, and scamming the shit out of stupid people. Is it my fault if those talents are unlegal?”

“Well, Ricky, it’s not the cops’ fault that those things are illegal, either,” Bubbles cut in. “They don’t create the law, they just enforce it. That’s why they’re called law enforcement.”

“If the fucking cops don’t create the law then who does?”

“The government, Rick,” Julian motioned for Ricky to pass him the joint they were sharing. “And dope is legal now.”

“Yeah, but the fucking government is co-opping all the fucking dope-growing jobs and putting me out of work!”

“They had to co-opt your grow-op, eh, Ricky?” Bubbles laughed at his own joke, while Ricky stared at him in confusion.

“What? Look, all I’m fucking saying is I should be able to scam people without getting fucking arrested all the time.”

“Boys, can we just watch the movie?” 

It took a record-breaking ten minutes before any of them spoke again.

“See, what I don’t get is why a guy in a fucking old eighties goalie mask is supposed to be scary,” Ricky said. “I mean, I have a hockey mask just like that! I’ve been playing hockey in a mask like that since I was fucking five, and it’s supposed to be terrifying?”

“Ricky, the thing that’s supposed to be scary is him chopping a bunch of teenagers to death with a fucking machete,” Bubbles pointed out. “And what do you mean, you don’t get why it’s scary? The first time we watched this movie, you two were both scared out of your minds!”

“Scared? We weren’t scared! Maybe Julian was scared, but I was deferently not fucking scared.”

“I distinctly remember you burying your face in Julian’s chest so you wouldn’t have to watch.”

“You’re so fucking full of shit, Bubs.” Julian tossed a handful of popcorn at Bubbles' face.

“Julian, you’re going to get popcorn all over my fucking shed. One of my kitties could choke on this.”

“Anyways, what’s really scary,” Ricky interrupted, “Is fucking ghosts and demons and possessed people. And saskatchewanches.”

“Ricky, none of that stuff is even real.”

“It is so real! Remember that haunted house we went to last year? A real fucking ghost attacked me, I felt it!”

Bubbles picked a piece of popcorn off his shirt and ate it. “Ricky, that was just a trick. Haunted houses don’t have real ghosts.”

“Uh, Bubbles, why would me, and you, and a whole shitload of other people, pay someone to trick them? I paid for a real ghost, and a real fucking ghost attacked me.”

Julian turned to look at him, eyes lighting up the way they only did when he’d thought of a new way to make money. “Holy shit, Ricky. You’re a fucking genius.” 

“See, Bubbles?”

“Not about the ghosts being real, you’re still fucking wrong about that. Ricky, listen, you remember twenty minutes ago you were saying you wanted to scam people without breaking the law?”

“Well, mostly I just don’t want to be fucking arrested–”

“And haunted houses are basically just a way to get people to pay you to scam them?”

A few beats went by before it dawned on Ricky exactly what Julian was trying to say. “Ohhh, I get it. You’re saying we should make a fake haunted house!”

“Well, it wouldn’t be more fake than any other haunted house, but yeah.” 

“That’s a good fucking idea! I’d love to scare some people and get paid for it.” Ricky chuckled to himself at the thought. “Bubs, you in?”

“Boys, even if it weren’t the middle of fucking July, and even if we could get all the necessary costumes and decorations and special effect cocksuckers, we don’t have a fucking house!”

Julian opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, then took a sip of his drink instead. Onscreen, another teenage girl screamed as she bled to death. If he had to guess from the look on his face, Ricky would have said Julian felt like he was watching his dreams bleed to death in front of him.

Luckily, he was a whole lot better at coming up with plans than Julian.

“I actually might have a solution for that,” Ricky said. “There’s this old, shitty abandononed cabin in the woods across the lake. My dad and I used to hang out there and have picnics when I was a kid. It’s fucking empty, it’s closeby, and it’s super fucking creepy. The only real problem I can think of is that it might be fucking haunted for real.”

“Ricky, we can’t just build a haunted house in some random fucking cabin,” Bubbles said. “Plus, what about all the other problems I just fucking listed?”

“No, no, we can do this,” Julian interjected. Ricky could see the gears in his head turning as he spoke. “As long as we don’t change the structure of the cabin or fucking damage it or anything, there’s no reason we can’t put some decorations and stuff up. We can buy or make costumes and fx shit, or get it from Shitty Bill, and by the time we put this thing together, it’ll basically be Halloween time anyways. Boys, I think we’ve got a plan.”

Bubbles looked less than convinced. “I’d like to at least fucking see this place before I commit to being a part of this, alright?” he asked.

“Tell you what, Bubs, why don’t we camp out there for a few days, cop a feel for the place or whatever, make a more solid plan, and if you still don’t like it, we’ll come up with something else?” Ricky suggested. “We can go over there tonight, even, once we finish the movie, we’ll just get some drinks and dope and food, and we’ll have a fucking great time.”

“Well, a camping trip does sound fun... you know what, boys, alright. Let’s go check this place out. But if I still don’t want to do this in a few days, I am fucking out, alright?”

“Yeah, alright Bubs,” Julian stretched his hand out. “Here, gimme the joint.”

***

Getting to the cabin was easy enough; they had an old rowboat courtesy of Shitty Bill, and once they were across the lake, it was a matter of minutes to the cabin. It looked pretty much as Ricky remembered it: old, rickety, completely abandoned... to put it shortly, like something straight out of a horror movie.

Julian, who had been grumbling about how he almost spilled his drink on the boat ride over, stopped mid-sentence upon seeing it. “Holy fuck, Rick. You’ve known about this place since you were a kid and you never brought us here?”

“To be honest, I kind of forgot about it until we started talking about fucking haunted houses and ghosts and all that shit,” Ricky said. “It could work, though, right?”

“Definitely. We’re barely going to have to do fucking anything to convince people this place is haunted.”

Bubbles glanced around nervously. “Ricky, there aren’t any forest dicks around here, are there? I don’t want forest dicks waking me up in the middle of the night telling me I’m arrested for trespassing.”

“First of all, Bubs, you wouldn’t get arrested for fucking trespassing, you’d just get a fine, and b, there’s no fucking forest dicks, I’ve been here plenty of times, and I’ve never seen one.”

“Alright.” Bubbles still looked a little nervous. “Should we go inside?”

Ricky had never actually been inside the cabin before – Ray had always said it was too dangerous, that there might be wild animals living in there. Ricky elected not to mention this as they headed inside.

It was pretty desolate; it didn’t look like it had been a particularly nice cabin even when it was occupied. The floor was cement, and so cracked that grass was growing straight through it in several places, and the walls were stark planks of wood without much in the way of insulation. A lone table and chair sat in the corner. 

A quick search revealed that the cabin was divided into four rooms; three downstairs, and a single tiny room upstairs. It appeared to have been stripped of any furniture or decoration that might have been there, save for the table and chairs. After maybe five minutes of looking around – there wasn’t much to take in – they returned to the front room, where they’d dropped their bags.

“You can put my shit upstairs,” Ricky said, crossing over to the table and pulling out a chair.

“Me? Why am I moving it?” Julian protested.

“I don’t have as many muscles as you, Julian. Asides, you won’t be able to go to the gym while we’re here, so –” Ricky broke off mid-sentence as he attempted to sit down and crashed straight through the chair.

“I’m still going to fucking work out while we’re here.”

Bubbles gave Ricky a hand up. “Julian, if you’re going to work out, you have to wear a shirt.”

“What – Bubs, of course I’m going to wear a shirt! What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t wear a shirt when you were exercising with Randy,”

“Rick, it was 30 fucking degrees out, it was hot as shit!”

“Yeah, I bet Randy thought so, too.” Bubbles elbowed Ricky, who looked blankly at him for a beat before breaking into a grin.

“Weren’t you guys fucking dating at the time anyways?” Ricky produced a joint and a lighter from his pocket. “You probably wanted him to think it was hot.”

“I did not date Randy! You guys are so full of shit.” 

“Wait, really?” Ricky stopped fumbling with his joint and looked back and forth quizzically between Julian and Bubbles.

“Of course I didn’t date Randy! Ricky, we’ve talked about this, I’m not gay.”

“You’ve talked about this? Why have you talked about this?” Now it was Bubbles’ turn to look back and forth between the other two, although his expression was less quizzical, and more seemed like he was ready to make fun of them regardless of how they answered.

“One time Julian tried to fucking convince me that I was gay because I ‘didn’t propose to my girlfriend quickly enough’ or whatever – I have a fucking daughter, by the way –”

“Ricky, I didn’t try and convince you that you were gay, I told you that other people were saying you were gay, and then you fucking confessed your love for me or whatever –”

“He confessed his love for you? Boys, back the fuck up here. What exactly happened?”

“I didn’t _confess my love_ for you, Julian, you were going on and on about how I was gay –”

“Rick, Rick, Rick – stop. You’re misremembering things.”

“Maybe you’re dismembering things! _Fuck_ , I burnt my hand.”

“Just – just let me tell the story. Here, give me the lighter, I’ll light it.” Julian took the lighter and joint from Ricky, setting his drink down on the table so he could use two hands. “So, it’s the Summer of 2001. I had heard some rumours around the park that people thought Ricky might be gay because he had been with Lucy since high school, and had a daughter with her, as he just mentioned, but he hadn’t proposed.” 

“Rumours? I didn’t hear any rumours. Who was saying that?” Bubbles asked.

“Uh – God, it was so long ago now, I’m not sure. Might have been Cory and Jacob?”

“Jacob? Jacob wasn’t living in the park in 2001.”

“Trevor. Not Jacob. Those guys are basically the same, you know, they’re all just weird and annoying.”

“Julian, you’re doing that thing you do when you lie.” Bubbles said. 

“What thing? I don’t have a thing I do when I lie!”

“Yeah, you do. It’s called being a terrible liar.”

“Well, if Cory and Trevor didn’t start the rumour then who did?” Ricky asked, reaching to pull out the second chair from the table.

“Ricky, that chair is just going to break if you sit down,” Bubbles warned. “Julian, did you start a rumour that Ricky was gay?”

“What? Julian, why would you want everyone to think I was gay?” Ricky forgot about sitting down and turned to look at Julian, trying to parse from his face whether he was telling the truth. 

Julian spluttered for a moment, then sighed. “Ok, look, Ricky, you’re not gonna be happy about this, okay?”

Ricky snatched the joint out of Julian’s hand. “Julian, just spit a trout, alright?”

“I wasn’t trying to convince you that you were gay. I was trying to convince you to propose to Lucy because she kept propositioning me, and she said if you guys were married, she would stop.”

“Prop editioning? What does that mean?” Ricky glanced over to Bubbles.

“She was trying to sleep with him, Ricky. She was cheating on you.” Bubbles said gently. 

“Cheating? Julian, if you slept with Lucy I’ll fucking kill you.”

“I didn’t sleep with her! That’s what I’m telling you, I was trying to get her to stop. I didn’t want to fuck things up between you guys, so I thought maybe I could convince you to propose to her without telling you.”

Ricky stared at him silently for a few moments, trying to calm down. He knew Lucy had cheated on him before – pretty frequently, in fact – but that was usually with people he hated anyways, and it was normally while he was in jail. That or she would flirt with people in front of him to make him jealous. But hitting on Julian? Repeatedly? Behind his back? While he wasn’t even in jail? That was news to him.

“You should have fucking told me,” Ricky said finally. 

“I know, Rick, I’m sorry. I thought I was looking out for you, man.” Julian studied Ricky nervously. “Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

Ricky picked up Julian’s glass from the table and drained it. Julian didn’t stop him, which Ricky figured meant he really was sorry – Ricky took sips from Julian’s drink all the time, of course, but if he had drunk the whole thing any other day, he was pretty sure Julian would have murdered him then and there. 

He thought about how good it would feel to smash the glass against the wall, then placed it back down on the table. “Yeah. Carry my fucking shit upstairs so I can go to sleep.” 

Julian hoisted Ricky’s duffle bag over his shoulder and wordlessly left the room, Ricky flipping him off as he went. 

Bubbles waited to speak until he was sure Julian was out of earshot, then asked, “Are you okay, Ricky?”

Ricky sighed and tipped his head back to rest against the wall. “I’ll be fine, Bubs. I guess I’m just fucking mad that Lucy was going above my back like that and I was too dumb to realize.”

“Ricky, lots of people don’t realize that their partners are cheating on them. It doesn’t mean you’re dumb. And nothing happened with her and Julian anyways. You know he wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t think Lucy would do that to me either, and she did.”

“Yeah, but Ricky..." Bubbles paused for a moment, seemingly unsure of how to continue. "Listen, I know you loved Lucy, and you were committed to your family, but I don’t think she was that good for you anyways.”

Ricky considered that for a moment. “Lots of people say Julian’s not good for me,” he said.

“Who?” Bubbles asked. 

“My dad, mostly... He told me Julian was like a dead car battery... no, wait, that’s not right – I was the car battery. No – I was a jumper cable? Shit, I don't fucking remember. Anyways, he said I was always listening to Julian and supporting him and shit and Julian wasn’t doing any of that stuff for me.”

“Well, do you think that’s true?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I guess Julian and I are kind of 'co-dependive' or whatever, but that’s cause we have to be. If we weren’t fucking co-dependive, we wouldn’t be able to function without each other.”

“Ricky – “ Bubbles shook his head. “Never mind. Keep going.”

“You and Julian, you’re family to me, you know that. I love you guys. But I also have my diabolical family to think about, and fucking Julian is always coming in with these big plans, always expecting me to do whatever he says, always in charge of whatever money we make, and half the time we get sent right back to fucking jail.” Ricky paused for a moment. “When he went with me to get a ring for Lucy, I thought he was supporting my dreams and my family and shit, but he was just fucking lying to me, trying to control me for his own benefit, and he couldn’t even tell me that my _fucking_ girlfriend who I was about to _fucking_ propose to was trying to have sex with him.”

There was a quiet moment as Ricky's words hung in the air. The actual sound of crickets filtered in from outside. Maybe they were inside, even – it certainly seemed possible.

The moment was interrupted fairly quickly by Julian returning. “I just left your stuff at the top of the stairs,” he said, glancing at Ricky but not fully making eye contact. “Anything else I can do?”

“You can put Bubbles’ shit upstairs, too, because there are definitely ghosts in this cabin and I am not fucking sleeping by myself,” Ricky said, gesturing at the remaining bags. “And then you can fuck off so we can have a private fucking conversation.” 

“Thanks, Julian.” Bubbles said quietly as Julian picked up his bag and left the room again. Once he was gone, Bubbles turned back to Ricky, who was staring blankly off into space. “Ricky, you know he was just trying to protect you. He doesn’t like to see you upset.”

“Bubs, you know if he was dating someone who was clearly going to hurt him, I would have fucking said something! _Fuck._ ” Ricky rapped his fist against the wall behind him.

“I know.”

“Julian’s always so high up on his fucking horseshit, with his muscles and his rum and his fucking psychiatry books. He thinks the answer to everything is to try and trick people’s fucking brains.” Ricky turned to look at Bubbles. “Fuck, you don’t even know the whole story.”

“Well, what happened? He told you people thought you were gay and then what?”

“I ... Okay, you know how sometimes when people tell me things I start to think maybe they’re true or whatever? Cause I know I’m not very smart about things a lot of the time, you know that.”

“You’re very suggestible, yes.”

“So Julian was going on and fucking on about how I must be gay because I hadn’t married Lucy, and I starting thinking to myself, well why hadn’t I fucking married Lucy? And what I thunk was that I guess if I was married I wouldn’t be able to spend as much time with you and Julian, and that would fucking suck.” Ricky paused, struggling to articulate his thoughts, a little nervous that what he was about to say next would give Bubbles ammunition to make fun of him for the rest of time. “Earlier that day, Julian and I had this... I dunno, this weird fucking moment. He was mad at me, or I thought he was mad at me, I’d fucked up somehow, and I was just worried he was going to say that I’d fucked up too many times and that was it, he was gone.” Ricky exhaled shakily, watched the smoke float up and dissipate. “You know right before that, when we got out of jail, he was saying he was done with me, he was talking about fucking leaving the park. I felt like I was walking through fucking egg Hell for ages after that, even when we were friends again.”

They were interrupted by Julian reappearing in the doorway a second time. “Alright, all your shit’s upstairs, I’m gonna try and get some fucking sleep. Goodnight, boys.” He crossed the room to unzip his own duffle bag, producing a fluffy blanket.

“Night, Julian,” Bubbles said, turning to make his way upstairs.

“Night, dickhead,” Ricky said before following him.

***

Upstairs, they set up their own makeshift beds in silence. Bubbles dug some beer out of his bag and passed Ricky a bottle, and they sat leaning against the wall with their blankets around their shoulders. Ricky knocked back half his beer in one swig, hoping it might make this conversation a little easier to have.

“Anyways, I just kept apologizing and shit, hoping maybe things would feel fucking normal again,” Ricky started, unsure exactly how to get back into things other than to pick up where he’d left off. “And you know I’m not so good with words, and I was pretty fucked up at the time, so I just sorta grabbed him... I dunno, I had this idea that if I just put my face really close to his and sort of looked into his eyes maybe we would have that fucking... telephony thing.”

“Telepathy, Ricky.”

“Yeah, that.” Ricky did his best to recall the moment; it had been two decades ago, and he had been drunk, so it was hard to remember exactly what his thought process was. “So I grabbed his head and I got kinda up in his face, and I told him that I fucking loved him and I didn’t want to lose him or whatever. And I just kept saying it, trying to fucking get my thoks over into his head and shit.”

“What did he say?” Bubbles asked.

“He just kept saying alright, alright, alright... I think he said I love you, too at one point, maybe, but I dunno, I think he was trying to get me to fucking shut up or something.” Ricky grimaced, taking another swig of beer. “I dunno, maybe he wasn’t fucking listening very good.”

“Well, Ricky, he probably just thought you were rambling cause you were drunk.”

“Bubs, if I was drunk, and I told you I loved you, what would you say?”

Bubbles frowned. “Am I drunk in this scenario?” he asked.

“Nope. Straight as a fucking sparrow.” Ricky said.

“Well, I would tell you that I loved you, too, Ricky.”

“And if I said it again?”

“I’d say, yup, I love you, too, Ricky, that hasn’t changed since five seconds ago.”

Ricky let out a heavy sigh. “You’re a good friend, Bubs.”

“Yes, I am.”

Ricky smiled at that for a moment, then frowned, trying to remember what his point had been. “Fuck, what was I fucking saying?” he asked.

“So, Julian told you people were saying you were gay, you were thinking about why you didn’t marry Lucy, and that’s somehow connected to this moment you had with Julian.”

“Right, thanks, Bubs. So I have this realiz– this real– I have this thok that maybe me being so needy towards Julian and fucking telling I love him and shit is what’s making people think I’m gay. And then I think, well maybe I am gay.”

“So you thought you were in love with Julian.” Ricky was pretty sure Bubbles was going to throw this back in his face once everything had blown over. He sounded practically ready to start giggling as it was.

Ricky didn’t feel very giggly. 

“Maybe,” he said quietly. “I don’t know.”

Bubbles’ expression sobered. “Did you tell him?””

“I fucking tried to, Bubbles, but he just kept saying no.”

“What do you mean saying no?”

“Well I said yeah, I’m gay, and he said, you’re not gay.” Ricky said. “I guess it didn’t fit into his fucking plan to get Lucy to stop trying to bang him.”

For most of the conversation, Bubbles had been carefully avoiding criticizing either of them too much; he was just trying to smooth things over so they could have a nice camping trip. Now, however, Ricky thought he saw something in Bubbles' expression change. “That’s kinda fucked.” Bubbles said quietly.

“No fucking kidding. Anyways, he kept saying I wasn’t gay, so eventumally I thought, well Julian’s a lot smartlier than me, he wouldn’t lie to me, he must be right. He fucking hit on some chick at the bank, got himself a girlfriend, and I proposed to Lucy, and we never talked about it again.”

“Fuck, Ricky.” Bubbles let out a low whistle. “I had no idea.”

“Yeah, well. I felt kinda fucking dumb about the whole thing.” Ricky drank the last of his beer and threw the bottle at the wall, watching it smash into pieces. 

“Ricky, you’re not dumb. You know, you might actually be gay.”

“You think so?” Ricky looked over at Bubbles, trying to see if he was serious or not. “I am pretty suggestionable or whatever the fuck you said earlier.”

“Well, I mean I’m not saying yes, for sure, you’re gay, go audition for Queer Eye, but it’s something you should at least think about.”

Ricky picked up the bottle cap from his beer, which had been lying in his lap, and started fiddling with it. “How would I fucking know? If I was gay?” he asked.

“You’d be attracted to men, Ricky. That’s what being gay is.”

Ricky wasn’t sure how to respond. He felt a little bit sick. “Look, forget about me being gay,” he said. “The important thing is that what Julian did was fucked and I don’t know how to trust him again.”

“Maybe you should go talk to him.” Bubbles suggested.

Ricky nodded. “Right. Ok. Thanks, Bubs.”

“Anytime.”

***

When Ricky got downstairs, Julian was sitting on the floor clutching his drink and looking like he’d seen a ghost. 

“Holy fuck, Julian, did you see a ghost?” Ricky asked, forgetting about the matter at hand completely. “I _knew_ this place was fucking haunted! Where is it? I’ll shoot it. Wait, no – if we have a real ghost we can make tons of money off this haunted house scam.”

“You can’t shoot a ghost, Rick.” Julian cut in. “Mostly because they’re not fucking real.”

“You know what, Julian, you can’t tell me what to fucking think, alright? My dad believed in ghosts, and he was the smartest person I know, way smarter than you and your fucking books!”

“Do you need something?”

“Yeah.” Ricky crossed the room and sat down beside Julian. “I wanna talk to you, and I want you to fucking listen to me, and not try and talk over me or fucking play-crate me or use reverse psychiatry bullshit. Just listen.”

“I’m listening.” Julian held his drink out to Ricky, who accepted it and took a sip without really thinking about it. He thought about all the things he wanted to say – how angry he was about Julian lying to him, manipulating him, patronizing him. How he was done with all of it.

After some thought, he said, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Julian said. Ricky could see the tension bleeding from his shoulders as he spoke, clearly relieved that he was off the hook.

Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t. 

Ricky put a hand on the side of Julian’s head, leaned closer to him so their foreheads were almost touching. “I love you,” he said again. He tried to hear Julian’s thoughts. 

“I love you, too.” Julian repeated. He looked tired – age and a lifetime of substance abuse weren’t treating his face well – but Ricky couldn’t tell what he was feeling. “Rick, you’re my family, I love you more than anyone in the world.”

“Ok.” Ricky sat back again. He was pretty sure Julian was listening this time. “Julian, you know the way that Lahey used to talk to Randy? How Randy would try and speak, and Lahey would just keep fucking saying his name over and over again until he stopped trying?”

“Yeah. That was fucked.”

“If we’re gonna do this haunted house thing – if we’re gonna do anything together, ever, and you know you can’t do anything without me because I’m the smartly one – you can’t fucking treat me like Lahey treated Randy, alright?”

“Ricky, I don’t – “

“Yeah, you do.” Ricky was starting to lose his cool a little bit. He took a deep breath, squeezing the bottle cap in his hand. “You do the same fucking thing, Julian, you just talk over me until I shut up and do whatever you tell me. I don’t want you trying to tell me how to think, or how to talk, or trying to tell me you know me better than I do. That doesn’t even make fucking sense.”

“Yeah, of course.” Julian said. “I’m really sorry.”

They studied each other for a second. Ricky thought about everything his dad had told him about how working with Julian was a bad idea. He thought about Julian letting him drink his whole drink. 

He was tired of thinking.

“Here, give me some blanket,” Ricky said, pawing at Julian’s shoulder. Julian rearranged the blanket so it was covering both of them. “Fuck, remember that time we thought you were a samsquantch?”

“You mean that time you beat me up with a baseball bat? Yeah, Rick, I remember.”

“Hey, you gave me a fucking black eye!”

“No, Bubbles had the black eye.”

“I’m pretty sure it was me.” Ricky smiled. “I’ve got some ideas for the haunted house thing.”

“Hit me.”

“Alright, well first of all, we’re going to have to get people across the fucking lake, right? What if you dressed up as the gym reapner and took people across in a gorgonzola.”

Julian looked at him blankly. “A gorgonzola?” he repeated. 

“One of those fucking weird boats they have in France.”

“A gondola?”

“What did I say?”

Julian opened his mouth for a moment, then shut it again. “That’s a great idea, man. What else?”

"Alright, well after people get scared, they're gonna need a way to calm down. And what calms people down better than anything?"

"Booze and dope?"

Ricky grinned. "Fucking booze and dope, man! We sell it at the exit, we make a shitload of money, and once people try my dope they'll never want to buy it from anyone else. It's perfect."

Julian nodded. "It is pretty fucking smart. Anything else?"

"Yeah, one more thing. We watched Friday the Thirteenth, which is supposed to be a fucking 'classic thrasher movie' or whatever, and it wasn't even fucking scary."

"And?"

"In order to find out what is scary, I think we're going to need to do a _little bit_ of research."

Julian looked at him for a moment, then sighed and smiled. "You wanna watch a bunch of horror movies?"

"Per Sizely."

"Alright." Julian produced a fairly new looking laptop from his bag. "What do you wanna watch first?"

Ricky's eyes boggled. "Where'd you get a fucking lapdog?"

Julian shot a look towards the door leading upstairs. "I stole it. But if Bubbles asks, I got it secondhand, alright?"

"Yeah, alright." Ricky said. "A fucking lapdog!"

"Yeah, yeah, it's not that big a deal, man. C'mon, what do you wanna watch?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for Child's Play

The first movie that really caused a reaction in either of them was _Child's Play_.

Not that the movie was particularly gory or scary or even that well-written. It's just that, as it turned out, they'd both developed a pretty adverse reaction to people making creepy, evil doll versions of themselves.

Between the whole creepy doll thing and the general lack of sleep mixed with high emotions, Ricky ended up being so on edge that the jumpscares – which normally wouldn't bother him – scared him half to death, at one point causing him to almost knock Julian's drink out of his hand as he jumped in surprise.

"Careful, Rick," Julian said, switching his drink to the hand further from Ricky. "This is my only glass."

"Sorry, Julian." Ricky rearranged the blanket, which had fallen from his shoulder when he moved. "That little puppet bastard is giving me the fucking creeps. He reminds me too much of Conky. Fuck, I hate that little creep."

"I bet you Bubbles could build a doll just like that," Julian mused.

Ricky stared at the image of Chucky's severed head on the screen for a moment. He shook his head. "It'd still end up being part Conky somehow. We'd have to call it fucking Chonky the Fuckpuppet or some shit."

Julian laughed. "Chonky the Fuckpuppet," he repeated. "That's fucked, Ricky."

Ricky was pretty sure he knew where this conversation was heading. "Julian, if we get Bubbles to build Chonky the Fuckpuppet or whatever for the haunted house thing, we're gonna end up having to deal with fucking Conky. I don't know if I can work with that little shithead for three months."

"He doesn't start turning into Conky unless he's stressed." Julian pointed out. "If can keep him calm, we won't have to deal with Conky, and we can make the haunted house super fucking scary and make a shitload of money."

Ricky turned away from the movie to look Julian directly in the eyes. "Fine," he said. "But if Conky shows up I am shooting him through the fucking head. That puppet has fucked up our plans too many times."

"Deal."

Ricky turned to look at the screen again just as Chucky's headless body burst through a wall to attack Jack. Ricky yelled in surprise and clutched at Julian's arm, while Julian, not normally one to lose his composure, jerked backwards and hit his head on the wall with a loud thud.

" _Fuck_." Julian disentangled his arm from Ricky's grasp so he could rub the back of his head with his empty hand. Ricky tried to steady his breathing, but he was distracted by the sound of footsteps from upstairs.

"Holy fuck, it's the ghosts!" The footsteps got closer. Ricky regretted not bringing his gun downstairs with him. He wracked his brains for knowledge about how to fight off evil spirits, but came up with nothing. "Julian, we're gonna fucking die!"

"Ricky, calm down. There's no such thing as ghosts." Julian lowered the hand that had been on the back of his head, and put it on Ricky's shoulder. "We're gonna be fine. Look at me." He set down his drink on the floor beside him and turned to fully face Ricky so he could hold him by both shoulders. The blanket, which had been wrapped around them, fell off to one side. "You're _fine_."

Ricky leaned forward and rested his forehead against Julian's chest, trying to find his heart. He was pretty sure Bubbles had told him that if you could line up your pulse with someone's heart, your heartbeats would become the same. What we wasn't sure about was whether he wanted his heartbeat to slow down so he could feel as stable and safe as Julian appeared to, or if he wanted Julian to be freaking out with him.

He didn't get a lot of time to think about it, however, because at that point the footsteps finally reached the room.

"Boys, what the fuck was all that yelling and crashing about? If you're fighting I'll – " Bubbles' voice broke off midsentence. After a pause, he said, "See, this is exactly what fucking happened when we watched Friday The Thirteenth for the first time! You guys got scared out of your fucking gourds and Ricky hid his face in your chest. Julian, you can't tell me I'm full of shit."

"Shut the fuck up, Bubs." Julian gently pushed Ricky away from him. "Look, Ricky, what did I tell you? The 'ghost' was just Bubbles all along."

Ricky blinked. He still felt freaked out, but he tried to compose himself. "Hey, Bubbles," he said.

"Hi, Ricky." Bubbles said. 

Before he could say anything else, Julian cut in. "Bubbles, do you think you could build a doll like the one from Child's Play?" he asked.

"Chucky? Oh, I could build a doll like Chucky easily, Julian. I could probably make a hundred of those cocksuckers in a week if I had the right supplies."

"What kind of supplies?"

"Well, wood. Paints, metal, glue. Crafting supplies." Bubbles ticked the answers off on his fingers as he spoke. "And tools, fucking powertools and shit."

"Ok." Julian glanced at Ricky, then back to Bubbles. "If we could get you that stuff, you could build dolls and puppets and shit? For the haunted house?"

"Yup. You get me that stuff, I'll fill this fucking cabin wall to wall with creepy dolls."

"Alright." Julian nodded, seemingly to himself. 

"I want to go to bed. Ricky, are you coming up or are you staying here?" Bubbles asked.

Ricky hesitated for a moment before answering. He still felt a little weird, and he wanted to process everything that had happened, but he also wanted to get drunk with Julian and not worry for a little while. Plus, Bubbles was going to go to sleep, which meant that if he went back upstairs he would have to be super quiet, and he wouldn't be able to talk things over. After weighing his options, he said, "I'm gonna stay down here for a bit, Bubs. I'll see you in the morning?" 

"Alright. Goodnight, boys." Bubbles said, turning to make his way back upstairs.

"Night, Bubs." Julian called as he left. He turned back to Ricky. "I think there's a few minutes left in the movie. Do you want to watch the rest?"

"Nah, I don't wanna get scared again and wake up Bubbles." Ricky said. He picked up the blanket from the floor. "Is this all you brought? You don't have a fucking pillow or anything?"

"Ricky, you sleep in your fucking car. I once saw you sleep in your _sink_."

"Yeah, but not by choice. I was just trying to get lied down before I fucking passed out." Ricky spread the blanket out over their laps and leaned back against the wall. "If I had a niece saying it, I would never sleep with less than four pillows."

" _Four_?" Julian picked up his glass and took a sip. "Why the fuck do you need four pillows?"

"I like to have something to cuddle. Fucking shoe me."

"Something to cuddle?" Julian scoffed. "Rick, has anyone in your life ever fucking cuddled you?"

Ricky felt a bit stung by that, but he tried not to let it show. "Don't be dissing cuddling, Julian," he said. "Maybe if you were a little more cuddly you could actually keep a girlfriend for more than a month at a time." 

Apparently that stung Julian just as much as his comment had stung Ricky, because his face dropped and he took another, longer swig of his drink. "What are you trying to fucking say?" he asked quietly. 

A pang of guilt rose in Ricky's stomach. He was angry, but he'd lost track of exactly what he was trying to accomplish. "Cuddling is good," he asserted. "You should try it. That's all I'm trying to say."

"What, you wanna fucking cuddle now?" Julian's voice was incredulous and more than a little annoyed, which Ricky figured was better than straight up sad. 

"I didn't say you should try it with me."

"Well, who are you expecting me to cuddle out in this cabin in the middle of the fucking woods?"

"No one." Ricky tried to remember how they'd gotten here. This conversation wasn't going the way he wanted. "I just – fuck, sometimes I think you get pissed off at me just for the fucking steak of being pissed off."

"I do not get pissed off at you just for the sake of getting pissed off! I just don't want to cuddle with you."

"I never said you should cuddle with _me_. Why in the fuck are you being so weird?"

"Well, why are _you_ all putting your face in my chest and resting it against my forehead and shit and then talking about how I should be more cuddly?"

Ricky had never in his life wanted to get drunk so badly. Actually, that wasn't true – the end of his first ever day in jail, he had wanted to get drunk worse than this. He and Julian had been arrested at the age of eighteen for robbing a series of cars in the area. Ricky had wanted money to buy flowers for Lucy, since he was pretty sure she was going to break up with him if he didn't do something to make her happy. More than that, he had wanted to do something with Julian, who kept talking about his plans to take business classes at the community college, make a fortune, and then marry Julianne and settle down somewhere outside the park, effectively leaving Ricky behind. 

By the time they were sitting in their shared jail cell dying to get drunk, neither of them had girlfriends, neither of them had money, both of them had been poked and prodded a lot more than they would have preferred, and Julian's perfect future was getting further away by the second – something which Ricky had secretly been happy about, not that he would have said anything. 

They had argued then, too, about whose fault it was that they got caught, about how they should act while they were in jail, about what they were going to do when they got out. However, they had eventually stopped arguing, apologized, and talked things over.

Ricky supposed that might work now, too.

"Sorry, Julian." he said. "I just got kinda fucking freaked out. It's been a stressedful night." 

"Yeah." Julian said, taking a swig of his drink. "I'm sorry, too, man. Bubbles fucking ragging on me about you burying your face in my chest kind of got to me." 

"Bubbles can fuck off." Ricky said immediately, not giving much consideration to what he was saying. "Like he's never gotten fucking scared of a movie. I love him, but he's scared of fucking everything."

Julian smiled. " _Everything_ , man. And he's always giving us a hard time about gay shit, but if you try and make fun of him, he cries."

"He's giving you a _hard time_ about gay shit, is he?"

"Yeah, he – Oh." Julian lightly whacked Ricky's shoulder with his free hand. "Shut the fuck up, man, you know that's not what I meant."

Ricky flashed his best shit-eating grin, then sighed. "But I don't wanna fucking dis Bubs, though. He's a good friend."

Julian nodded. "I'm not trying to dis on him, I'm just saying – sometimes the whole trying to turn everything I say into me being gay bit is a little much."

Ricky nervously chewed on the inside of his cheek, trying to decide if what he wanted to say next was worth potentially leading to another argument. He decided he could always apologize again if things went south. "Did you ever think you might be gay?" he asked. "I mean, I know you're not, we fucking talked about it, whatever – but did you ever, like, think about it?"

Ricky thought it was a great credit to their friendship that Julian didn't immediately shut down the subject and berate him for even suggesting it. Instead, he stared silently into his drink for a few seconds, then said, "Alright, you know how Bubbles always says he found me trying to learn the Dirty Dancing choreography in high school?"

"Yeah?"

There was another long pause before Julian continued. Ricky thought Julian must have been experiencing the same things he himself had been going through in his conversation with Bubbles earlier. He tried to make his expression look serious and supportive, although he was privately delighted that he was going to hear the real story of Julian's Dirty Dancing phase. 

Eventually, Julian said, "I was trying to teach myself to dance because I thought I might be gay and I thought that was something gay people were supposed to be into. I figured it would work as a fucking litmus test, like if I loved dancing then that would confirm I was gay, and if I hated it, then I must be straight."

"That's fucking dumb as fuck." Ricky said, then, remembering he was supposed to be serious and supportive, added, "Sorry."

"No, it – it was fucking dumb as fuck." Julian pulled a bottle of rum and a bottle of coke from his bag and refilled his drink. "Bubbles thought so, too."

"You told Bubbles?"

"He walked in on me dancing, and, you know, I'm not good at fucking lying on the spot. I ended up just telling him what was going on."

"Was he suppositive about it?"

"Yeah. But I could tell he was a little bit uncomfortable. The next day, I told him I'd figured things out, and I definitely wasn't gay. He said the dancing would still come in handy to seduce people, and he made a joke about me being 'Patrick Swayze, getting all the ladies'."

"I remember that!" Ricky frowned. "Wait, why in the fuck do I remember that?"

"You happened to walk up at that point and overhear. Bubbles told you I was learning to dance like Patrick Swayze so I could seduce the hot girls at school, you thought it was a great idea, and he's been calling me fucking Patrick Swayze and joking about me being gay ever since."

"Oh." Ricky said. "Shit."

"Yeah."

"No, I mean – that's bad, but also he's fucking gonna for to do that to me now."

"What? Why?"

Ricky figured at this point he pretty much had to tell Julian everything. The spot where he was chewing at the inside of his cheek began to seep blood. He reached over and took a sip of Julian's freshly-refilled drink. 

"Rick. What's going on?" Julian asked again.

"You're not gonna fucking like this, Julian."


End file.
